The use of complex smart headlight technology to display images on the road is something we first saw a couple of years ago, through Mercedes-Benz digital light. This next-generation material has yet to make its way into mass-market vehicles, but that’s something Ford wants to change. The main attention of this is to avoid any type of confusion on the road when driving.
Smart headlights for your safety
Lighting in cars has never stopped evolving. After xenon in the 90’s, LED headlights, laser headlights and recently the so-called digital headlights have arrived. The latter also use LED technology, but, in addition to lighting the race, they work as a floodlight.
And it is that, over time, manufacturers have managed to introduce technological improvements with the aim of reducing the number of traffic accidents and, in addition, their severity. Even so, accidents continue to occur in which fatalities occur. Could there be an improvement in safety if state-of-the-art headlights were installed? The answer, with these smart headlights, is yes.
However, this technology comes after what is augmented reality on the windshield and windows, movie screens inside cars, and many others for cars that are the cars of the future. This is what Ford has devised, which wants the headlights of its cars to show images on the road with the sole purpose that we do not take our eyes off the road (or the steering wheel).
A light with projected signs and information
We have this from the hand of the Head Up Display systems, known as HUD, elevated projection of information’, which show information related to driving -such as, for example, the speed at which we are driving or directions from the browser-.
This occurs on the windshield or on a transparent plastic sheet located above the dashboard in the case of those known as Head Medium Display. In addition, the projected light is modified to create the illusion that the characters are at a greater distance.
From the physical point of view, this system offers two advantages. On the one hand, the time that the driver spends not looking at the road is reduced, because he does not have to look down to the instrumentation and back up again. On the other, visual fatigue is reduced because the adaptation to focus the information is much less. The technology of this new generation of headlamps has a high resolution , something essential to achieve a differential result in the market.
Everything it can bring us when driving
In those, the projection of information on the road with high-resolution smart headlights could provide the driver with information about changes in the weather, show the next turns (connected to the navigation system) or even project the width of the vehicle, helping to know if It will fit in a hole or in a parking space.
This technology could also be of help to other users. Ford says it could project a crosswalk onto the road, for both driver and pedestrian view, in situations where existing road markings are faded or unclear. It could also show a path for the driver to follow to make sure they pass bicyclists at a safe distance.
